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Yeast FAQ

Yeast FAQ

What is the difference between active dry yeast and instant yeast (also known as bread machine yeast)?

Instant yeast is a little more potent than active dry yeast and can be mixed in with your dry ingredients directly. I generally find it easier to work with. Active dry yeast works just as well as instant yeast, but requires being activated in a little bit of warm water before being added to the rest of the ingredients. Failure to properly activate it will result in your loaf not rising adequately.

Yes. If you are substituting active dry yeast for instant yeast in a recipe, read the instructions on the package to figure out how to activate the yeast before adding it to the recipe and reduce the amount of water you add later in the recipe by the amount of water you proof the yeast in (i.e., if you activate the yeast in a half a cup of water, add a half a cup of water or milk less later so that you end up with the same total amount of liquid in the recipe). You may also want to add about 20 percent more yeast to the recipe than what is called for, although using less yeast and letting it rise more slowly will result in a more flavorful loaf. If you are substituting instant yeast for active dry yeast, you can reduce the amount of yeast you use in your recipe by approximately 20 percent. Be sure not to forget to increase the amount of water you add to the dry ingredients by the amount that you would proof the active dry yeast in, so that you end up with the same total amount of liquid in the recipe.

How should I store yeast?

I buy instant yeast in large packages and store it in an airtight jar in the refrigerator. Doing so, you should be able to get at least six months or a year out of it. If you notice the potency starting to taper off, just add a bit more when you bake.

Can I freeze yeast?

Sure! Just be sure it seal it in an airtight container before doing so.

What about fresh yeast? What is it?

Professional bakers often use fresh yeast. If you encounter a recipe that uses fresh yeast, divide the weight by 3 to calculate the proper amount of instant yeast to use.

Many recipes in my baking books call for using a starter. I don't have the time/energy/patience to sustain a starter. Can I substitute yeast instead?

Absolutely. And vice-versa: you can turn a yeasted bread into a naturally leavened bread by omitting the yeast and including a starter. The flavor will be different, obviously, but in my experience it still can turn out quite good. You may even find you prefer your modified version to the original recipe. I don't know of an exact formula to calculate how much to substitute. I just assume that I'm going to need to add a little more flour and water (how much of each depends on whether it was a wet or dry leaven I am replacing) and enough yeast for a comparable size batch of yeasted bread. I usually figure around 1 or 2 teaspoons per loaf. Also be aware that yeast tends to move quicker than starters do, so expect to cut the rise time down by something like one half (or else reduce the yeast even more).

Comments

How do I feed a starter, specifically a poolish, so that I can continue to use it. Should I store it in the frig or leave it at room temperature. I'm finding very little information on the web about starters and their maintenance.

A poolish is really just a one-shot deal that's used primarily to inject a lot of flavor into the bread, though it does help the bread rise as well. Basically, the night before you bake, take a pinch of yeast, a cup or so of flour, and 1/2 to 1 cup of water -- mix it all up and let it work. Here's a recipe for bread that uses the poolish method.

You came to the right place. If you look up at the very top of the discussion page where you added your question I think you will find the answer you need!

We also had a much longer discussion of yeast here: Active Yeast vs Instant Yeast. Sometimes we talk in "breadmaking language" so if any of the words don't make any sense please ask what they mean. People here love answering questions.

I am having a lot of trouble getting my sourdough to rise properly and have an airy consistancy. I have been using my own natural starter (no added yeast other than the yeast captured in the air) with little luck. I cultivated my starter for 2 weeks before I began using it, so I assumed the yeast concentration would be high enough to get a good rise.

If anyone has any suggestions for me to get my sourdough to rise please let me know!

(I should tell you that the dough does rise, but minimally during a 6 hour rest period. While it is baking it goes through a second rise, but nothing compared to the rises of a dough with dry active yeast)

Hi fudgies. I'm still a novice, but there are plenty of experts around here. Please tell us how you maintian your starter - how often you feed it, how much flour and water, whether it's firm or liquid, etc. With more info, I know the folks here can help you.

I wanted to use my own sourdough after I found out that commercial baking (instant dry, and most others) yeast is cultured on(GMO) beet and/or corn molasses. I started mine with potato water (leftover from boiling potatoes, and flour, left on the counter to capture yeast from the air. My first two batches of bread did not rise well at all. Took 24 hours to rise and crust was almost too hard to cut. It took about a month before it actually started to work well. Mind you, I was not baking ever day! Probably my fourth batch of bread was when it started working well. I added about two cups of starter to my two loaf recipe, and it rose beautifully. I have left my starter untouched in the fridge for over a month. Go figure. I pour off the yucky looking brown liquid that has accumulated on the top, mix in a little flour and water and leave it out to 'work' for a few hours. When nice and bubbly, I use some to make my bread, replace the flour and water, let it work for a couple more hours, and back in the fridge it goes. If I am not going to be baking (I live by myself, and can only eat so much) I will take some of the starter out (adding it to my compost) and feed it, and put it back in the fridge. Sometimes I forget to do that, and my starter has gone as long as six weeks, untouched. I take off the top layer that looks really gross, feed the starter, and good to go. I would say, from my experience only, don't expect amazing results for the first 6 to 8 weeks, then it will be marvelous! Hope this has been helpful. :-)

Whenever I use a recipe that calls for instant yeast, I use exactly the same amount of active dry (rather than using a little more) The bread always turns out just fine. Perhaps it may take a tiny bit longer to proof but that doesn't generally harm the final loaf.

Recently I decided to chuck all my yeast and start over. I had been using SAF Red and Active Dry which I store in an acrylic sealed container in the freezer. I have had good luck with both varieties but I suspected that any degradation would be so slow that I might not notice the loss in performance. A pound of yeast is cheap so I dumped them both the day my new batch came from KA.

I decided to abandon the Active Dry and switch to SAF Gold Instant. Gold is what they call "osmotolerant" and is supposed to be better for sweet or acidic doughs. I have been making a lot of sourdough/yeast combinations lately and I thought the properties of Gold might be a help.

It's been about a Month since I started using the Gold and I love it. I frequently add a little Starter to the preferment (20-200 grams) and I get much better results in proofing now that I have started using this new yeast.

I t could be that I hadn't noticed the slowly degrading 2 year old yeast I dumped. I don't think this has anything to do with KA running a marketing program on us for another product. SAF Gold is made by serious yeast makers and for a reason. It won't cost much to try it out and if I'm right we will benefit.

And have to say I have never seen such large pearls of yeast! And the color has me stumped! Never too old to learn a new trick....

After mixing some of this into water and flour 50/50 and left overnight, I can see it didn't quite dissolve evenly. I did mix it into the water first but not long enough. I will let it dissolve completely next time. (edit)....well that didn't work until the temperature got up to 105°F or 40°c ! I found out the package says nothing about dissolving it.

Dry yeast

Korean Dry Yeast -This photo is great! - I can't even see it this well with spectacles!

I used it in the Monkey bread recipe. But not before playing with it for hours to get it to dissolve. By using hot water, it dissolved within minutes, I added sugar to proof it to make sure it was working. And therein lies the problem, the water has to be heated first. I did build it into the recipe by dissolving powdered milk into the water, heating it, cooling it and adding the yeast. It takes just a little bit more and it has a lot of lifting power.

I have a peach wine experiment going on at the same time. 2 litres of juice each with a different yeast and covered with a balloon. The first has a pea size lump of sd added, the second a pinch of instant yeast, the third a pinch of dry yeast, and the forth instant yeast again. They are all making gas and working hard. The instant is the first yeast to peak and settle. The sd took days to peak and still has bits of foam, the dry also took time to dissolve (no heat)and still has foam on the surface, it's balloon was the largest (most gas). The fourth bottle got started last night and just blowing up the balloon.

So what does that tell me? That if I'm having a party I should just blow them up and not use yeast or maybe dry yeast and sd are good for longer ferments, instant for short ones.

I have enough juice for one more bottle, I will heat up a little bit of the juice and dissolve the dry yeast in it then see if it goes gassy faster.

This really surprises me; I had thought that hot water would kill the yeast! Just how hot are you having to make the water? (I generally use baby-bottle-temperature water to dissolve active dry yeast but have used colder water on occasion and still had decent results.)

Is there any difference in flavour in the various lengths of time it takes to blow up the balloons with your peach wine experiment?

So I let the hot water cool until I could hold my finger in it about 42°c or 105°F. I put my quick read thermometer in to check. The yeast above (photo) must have a gel coating that requires heat to melt. It would also not surprise me if that coating included malt, or other food stuff for the yeast, could be a brown rice coating too. I still added a teaspoon of brown sugar. Once dissolved I let it sit for about 10 minutes waiting for foam ...and it did come ...first slowly and then enough to cover the surface. After 20 minutes it looked like cappucino.

About the peach wine...I haven't tasted them yet but the sd looks the best, it is effervescent. Looks a lot like peach champagne. Opps, the dry yeast is also effervescent. Does make me curious!

I tasted the peach wine, if you could call it that, granted 10 days it is not very old but it is very interesting. The one fermented with my sd starter tastes very good, a improvement on the peach juice with hint of sour and fine bubbles that dance on the tongue. The instant yeast wine tastes yeasty and not so nice. The dry yeast is also yeasty but dryer with touch of bitter. I went back to the first bottle and tasted another 100g ...much better.

Now if I applied this to dough fermentation, it confirms that I prefer to use sourdough than instant or dry yeast in a long extended preferment. I can taste lots of differences with this simple experiment. The sourdough brings out the flavor instead of dominating it. hmmmm....

This is most interesting. And it sort of confirms what I've always felt about instant yeast I much prefer to use active dry (and very occasionally fresh yeast) if I'm using commercial yeasts.

In spite of the "too sour for our taste" qualities of our sourdough bread, I still think that the aroma of it baking is far more pleasing than the aroma of bread made with commercial yeast. As you say, there is a bitter quality that is underlying with the active dry yeast.

Today, I'm trying an experiment with our sourdough and am just about to shape it - immediately after kneading it - and so allow for only one rise. I'm hoping that this will cut back on the sour flavour.

I must say that I really like that the wine made with your sourdough tastes best. Very cool.

A week ago I tasted the peach wine made with sd starter... very much like a weak vinegar.

The peach wine with instant yeast tastes more like wine. Not sure I like it yet.

I poured the vinegar over into a clean bottle and set it aside for salads. Today I took it out and it was all bubbly again! Poured some out into a glass and it made a nice foam head. Wow and tastes....like peach beer. Very good! I put it into the fridge to cool. When I drink it I think of grilled bratwurst and picnics. Crazy!

And I find it particularly fascinating that when it was young, it was sour and vinegary but after being allowed to mature, it turned to ale! I wonder if the vinegar-like taste is similar to the first kind of bacteria that is formed in the beginning stages of a wild yeast starter and the final peach beer is like the final stages.

I'm on lesson two which says instead of 2 tsp of yeast you use 1. (which is half a pack of the store bought yeast). My question is this: when you mix the yeast to the package ingredients it's one tsp of sugar and 1/4 cup of water. If I only use half a pack do I adjust the water and suger to half too?? Thanks.....very much a beginner.

Use the same amount of water and sugar that are called for in the recipe - ie: 1 tsp yeast with 1/4 cup water. You can reduce the sugar if you want or if you don't want to use sugar, you can safely omit it entirely when rehydrating yeast. (I rarely add sugar when rehydrating yeast).

There are lots of really fabulous bread recipes that call for flour, water, yeast and salt only.

Yesterday was the first time I worked with yeast and where I'm from, I can only get instant yeast and not active dry. I did not know that I had to reduce the amount of yeast I used if I substitute instant for active dry but it worked quite fine, though the bread was rising really fast.

As for activating the yeast, I dissolved the instant yeast with water and sugar and actually it worked fine for me, and fortunately did not have any clumps as you guys described. I have a question though. If I use instant, do I have to increase the amount of water that is called for (the original called for active-dry)? If so, how much more water do I need to add?

I mix my yeast & flour with a whisk leaving one side higher than the other. Hollow a place on the high side for the salt, then add the warm water to the low side. This keeps the salt from effecting the yeast.

I just recently (last month) starting making bread. I am in the process of perfecting cinnamon raisin. So here is my question - I want to bake the bread in the morning to have for breakfast, but I don't want to wake up at 2AM to start the process. Is there a problem with leaving the dough to sit overnight during its second rise ??

Amazing what all happens in the refrigerator! Two months ago I used part of a small cube of fresh yeast and threw the other half (wrapped in it's foil with the plastic loose around it) into one of the fridge door compartments, not paying too much attention. I was too busy.

Now, I look at the cube and it is still in order! (normally my nose finds it first) It had fallen into the baking soda I keep open in a small dish. Interesting, could this be the reason for it keeping so long? Somehow it seems to keep the yeast fresh which normally lasts only a few weeks.

Just an observation but I will be doing this more often, that is; storing the wrapped fresh yeast over a dish of baking soda in the fridge. Makes for happy beasties and me too!

On p. 63 of Bread Baker's Apprentice, Peter Reinhart says that "yeast can't feed on sucrose, or table sugar, because it is a two-chain sugar and thus too complex for the yeast." The instructions on the Fleischmann jar of AD yeast say to dissolve the yeast in water and add sugar to proof it. In fact, I've done this all my life, thinking that the sugar was necessary. Am I to understand fromReinhart that it's not?

With active dry yeast, as long as it is still viable, all you have to do is rehydrate it before adding it to your bread dough (and some people argue that you don't even have to do that). Lukewarm water does help but it can even be cool water for rehydrating. (It just can't be too hot.)

But Reinhart is correct that the little bit of sugar in water for starting yeast is entirely unecessary. There are enough sugars in the flour to feed the yeast (the flour turns into the necessary sugars as the dough autolyzes.)

I've used active dry yeast to make many different kinds of bread, all of which have zero sugar in them.

Every so often I come across recipes that omit dissloving dry yeast in water, instead the recipe calls for adding the yeast to the flour prior to the liquid. In my experience this leads to less rise in the bread and denser end product.

Is dissloving active dry yeast in water such an 'obvious' step that it's assumed you'll do it anyways or is there a reason for specifically not dissloving the yeast first?

I'm to the point now when I see this in a recipe, I go ahead and disslove the yeast in water first anyways.

It's my understanding that "instant" yeast does not need to be dissolved first and can be added directly to the dry ingredients. Apparently, if it's absolutely certain that the yeast is viable, this can be done with active dry as well.

But personally, I like to rehydrate the yeast first and, like you, I go ahead and dissolve it automatically, no matter what the instructions in the recipe say.

I thought I knew the answer to this, but am now questioning myself. Here's the way I understood it: Insant Yeast (a.k.a. Rapid Rise or Bread Machine Yeast) is easier to use but not faster. What is "instant" about it is the fact that you don't have to pre-proof it (can mix it right in with the flour), not how fast it gets the job done. My impression had been that it was deisgned for ease of use, not speed (i.e. so you could drop it in your bread machine and come back the next morning -- a slow rise that requires nothing from you).

Is this right? I'm hoping an expert here can correct me if I'm wrong.

When I use Instant in the same volume as Active Dry, it takes nearly twice as long and sometimes longer for me to get the same proofing done (not a bad thing, of course). And yet, so many "quick" bread recipes I see use Instant -- is it just the name that throws people? Or, again, do I completely have this backwards?

I get the impression that yeast is yeast and the time it takes for bread dough to rise is more dependant on temperature and/or amount of sugar. As you say, "instant" simply means that it can be added directly to the dry ingredients without having to be rehydrated first. So it's easier for some people to use.

According to most of the bread books I've seen, one is supposed to use slightly less instant yeast than active dry. Here again are a couple of the yeast equivalents formulae I've come across:

Hi... I need some help.. I'm going to try to make some bread for the first time, my recipe calls for active dry yeast but at home what I have is instant yeast. I read above that u also rehydrate instant yeast but I'm not sure. I like to follow step by step the recipes, but now I don't know if I can/should dissolve the instant yeast as it says to do with the active dry, and if not, I will have to change the order of what to do. Can somebody tell me.. If my recipe says: "In large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. (If you've just cooked the potatoes, use 1 1/2 cups of warm potato water.) Stir in potatoes, sugar, butter, salt, eggs and 3 cups of the flour." Should I follow this same directions???

Hi, so I am totally new to bread making and I'm not sure where to look or where to post this. I am currently using active dry yeast, and my machine lists 3 different types I can use. No where in the manual or the recipes did it tell me to dissolve or proof the yeast. So my question is when I prepare my active yeast do I put it in with the wet ingredients or after the dry once I prepare it? If it helps any my manual advises to do liquids,dry, and then dig alittle hole in the dry to put the yeast. Sorry if this is confusing, im confused myself :)

Make sure you buy yeast which is well within the use by date and store it in an airtight container in your refrigerator. You can always do a 'proof' test to check that the yeast is still active, without using the test mix in your bread maker, a small amount of yeast to 'waste', if you want reassurance.

If you follow the manual instructions in full you should have no problem, and produce good loaves, but if you do have more questions, post a new topic in the bread machine recipes forum, you have more chance of receiving a helpful response if you start a new thread.

I'm tempted to attempt P. Nury's rye bread this weekend but have no starter to make the levain. What's my best alternative, starting with instant yeast, to complete the process in 48 hours or less? I have Leader's book at home and I would appreciate the exact volume/weight measurements of ingredients to substitute for the stiff starter and/or levain in his recipe.

I guess the closest would be to mix up a sponge using the amount for elaborating the sourdough and instead of inoculating with a scant tablespoon of active starter, a pinch of instant yeast would work. Let it ripen overnight in a warmish spot and give it plenty of room to expand if it goes crazy.

It won't be the same but you might still end up with a tasty bread.

I've found myself also without a starter and a packaged bread dough mix (can't read it but I'm betting it contains yeast, for bread machines.) I plan on mixing up a sponge using a small amount of the mix combined with water and letting it peak before I add it to a bigger mixed up batch of the mix. I expect record rising times so I might cool down the final dough with ice cold water and/or refrigerated retarding. I also don't have an oven or a bread machine but heck, can't have everything! Right?

I am trying to perfect 'glass bread' , a special boccadillo bread from Spain. I have done lots of research and am reading about doing the bread in a 'thermomix' versus by hand. This bread is 90% hydration, so imagine it looks like a spongy loose batter when put into a form similar to a baguette mold.

I have two general concerns before I continue in my experimentation. The flour used is flor comun- common flour 000= what would that translate to in terms of AP flour gluten and protein: 10%,11%? I am not sure. The second concern is that fresh cake baker's yeast is used but ,living in western Japan, it is not to be found so I have done a conversion of 12.5 g of cake to make 4.25g of saf-instant or 6.25 g of general dry yeast. My concern,besides besides potential rising time, is whether there is a taste or crumb difference. This bread is extremely 'holed', and when toasted ,very very crisp.

Does anyone have experience converting Spanish ingredients to English , American, or Japanese, and does anyone know the relative pros and cons of a thermomix machine?

I am doing a research about how different yeasts react under different conditions. I have read from different sites including this site that active dry yeast should be activated with warm water before adding the other bread making ingredients but I was wondering what would happen if the water was not added to the active dry yeast?

My husband often adds active dry yeast directly to the flour. As long as the yeast is viable (there is usually a "best before" date), it will still do the job.

But I like to rehydrate the yeast before adding it to the dough. I even rehydrate instant yeast. Why? Because that's what I've always done... it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

The only thing you must do is to ensure that the temperature of the ingredients is below 120F because yeast begins to die if the temperature is higher. Rather than getting the thermometer out, I'm lazy and use baby bottle test on the back of my wrist as the tester for whether the temperature is right.

I have been baking bread on and off for awhile. A couple of times when I mixed all the ingredients to a bread recipes and am kneading it to a smooth elastice ball, I noticed that my yeasts have popped out on the dough's surface and it feels rough from the popped yeasts. Does this mean that they are dead? If they are, how can I fix this so that it will proof the first time without making the dough taste too yeasty?

Lastly, I notice that some bread recipes call for alot of yeast like 4-5 cups of flour and used 2.5 teaspoon yeast, but that has the tendency to make the bread taste too yeasty so I pulled back to like 3 cups of AP to 1 teaspoon of yeast. My question is is instant yeast different from active yeast by how Insta is more yeasty tasting than active yeast?

Carefully scroll to the top of the post and read the differences. If yeast is popping out of dough it is more than likely an active yeast variety that must be first dissolved in 40°C warm water before using. Or if using instant yeast, the dough is too dry to dissolve the yeast (more likely to happen with late addition of yeast. using a mister to spray a little water with the yeast addition helps.)

Yeast doesn't directly leave a flavour when it is baked. It's the fermentation by- products that give the flavour. So if the fermentation flavour is stronger when using one yeast over another, that might be one of the reasons that less instant yeast is used to raise the same amount of dough as active yeast. Less active yeast is used than fresh yeast for the same reason.

If substituting instant yeast for an active yeast or a fresh yeast recipe, it is better to reduce the amount of yeast.

I made a wonderful whole wheat starter two weeks ago. It is very well developed. I made Italian sourdough bread recipe I found and I think I may have learned a couple things. My question is does it matter if I use 100% whole wheat starter in any recipe or is hundred percent organic whole wheat starter only used for certain whole wheat bread recipes? My reason for asking this is my bread came out harder than a rock I was so disappointed. Now after thinking this through I am not sure if my starter was at its peak when I used it or if it was just using it during a stage not so active, also maybe I used too much flour. My recipe called for over 5 cups of flour probably 5 3/4 cups of flour and 1 and 1/5non-chlorinated water. 1 teaspoon of honey and 3 teaspoons of marine salt I mixed it up keeping the salt from the yeast starter you know and let it rest for two hours put it in the refrigerator for 12 hours Took it out at room temperature for two hours shaped it put it in a towel covered with whole wheat flour covered it with the towel nicely over the bread and waited three hours for it to double I never really thought it double but I baked it on a baking stone the oven with heated to 525° and as soon as I put the bread in the oven on the stone I reduced the temperature to 355 degree. Any help with this recipe would be very appreciated or if you have a recipe or if you can give me any advice I would so appreciate it thank you. I will eagerly waiting for some help as soon as someone can. Thanks again ,Sherry

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